• Growth Taktics
  • Posts
  • 🚀 This Week's Hacks: Go low in your ads when they go high 👇

🚀 This Week's Hacks: Go low in your ads when they go high 👇

The best email of your week

Hey, Marketers! As you try to figure out the is-it-Twitter-or-is-it-X-now re-brand, check out this week’s growth hacks:

What’s in the news…

Yelp reported ad revenue over $322M in Q2, up 14% YoY, Threads daily active user count is down 82% since launch, TikTok changed some of its platform features to stay compliant with the EU’s new Digital Services Act.

Growth Hacks

#1. Advanced Meta bids strategy

Meta handles the bidding for you in an ad auction.

But if you know what you're doing - and we're about to get into that - manual bidding can help improve performance.

Jon Loomer shares some of the Meta manual bidding strategies available and when to use them:

High Volume: It's the default bid strategy for most performance goals and prioritizes optimizing actions within your budget without considering factors like CPA, ROAS, or bid amount. High volume is a suitable strategy for new campaigns or products - it's also a good approach for newer advertisers.

Cost Per Result Goal: When you opt for a Highest Volume bid strategy, you can set a Cost Per Result Goal. Here, Meta will aim to maximize volume for your optimization event while reaching your set CPR goal. Make sure you know your average CPR from previous runs first before setting a goal.

Highest Value: If you're using the Meta pixel for sending purchase value events, you can streamline your campaign to use the entire budget towards the highest purchase value. This strategy is good for eCommerce brands with a large product catalog that can prioritize ROAS over sales volume. Just make sure you have enough sales data to exit the learning phase.

ROAS Goal: Similar to the CPR goal, a ROAS goal strategy can also be used in sales campaigns that use the website conversions location and the performance goal of "maximizing the value of conversions". And like CPR, you first need to know your average ROAS for a specific product- this will help with both profitability and stability.

Bid cap: This is the maximum amount you're willing to bid in an auction. It's important to note, though, a lower bid doesn't always mean you'll end up with a lower CPR. And vice-versa: A higher bid doesn't always result in a higher CPR. Jon recommends bid caps only for the "most advanced and adventurous advertisers". If you're able to figure out the appropriate bid based on expected conversion rates and marginal cost, it could be a viable option for you.

You can check out Jon's full article for a deeper dive, plus his campaign setup suggestions for putting these strategies into action. "

Source: Jon Loomer

#2. To use Dynamic Search Ads or not to use

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) automatically generates ads using the content on your website. This can help improve relevance and reach users you were missing with your regular search ads.

But should you even be using DSA? Michelle Morgan thinks there are a few things you should keep in mind to answer this question and lay a strong foundation for success (if the answer is yes):

1) Assess your website's compatibility with DSA campaigns.

Google cautions that DSAs might not yield the best results for websites that:

- Undergo frequent updates (such as those offering daily deals).

- Lack significant, algorithm-friendly text that accurately describes the brand and its products.

- Heavily depend on images, or have weak meta descriptions.

Any of these sound like your site? Think again before launching DSA

2) Familiarize yourself with the way search engines identify your URLs.

When setting up a DSA campaign, there are two strategies:

- Employ all URLs recognized by Google, in addition to page feeds: This grants Google the ability to utilize any webpage it discovers on your site for ad creation. However, ensure you exclude pages like About, Privacy Policy, etc.

- Limit to URLs from a specific page feed: You can upload a CSV file of the pages you wish to include in the DSAs, excluding all other pages on your site by default.

3) Get acquainted with how ad copy is formulated for DSAs.

Google confines your ad copy to two brief descriptions and will occasionally generate parts of the copy—especially the headline.

While you can't dictate what Google generates, it is possible to review the copy by visiting the Search terms report under the "dynamic ad targets" section. What you'll see is that the copy closely mirrors your meta titles. So craft your titles to align with potential DSA headlines.

Consider these tips and the others that Michelle shares before you dive head-first into DSA campaigns. You want to make a splash - but the right kind of splash (we're picturing a great childhood cannonball).

#3. Boost CTR 47% by doing something 98% of other advertisers don't

A recent Wordstream study showed that only 2% of text ads use a negative sentiment.

Always stay positive, right? Well, maybe not.

What 98% of advertisers are missing out on is how a negative ad can really move the needle.

In one example, an image with an out of shape body replaced a slender, beauitful one. The result: 47% increase in CTR.

And in another, replacing a headline that said "get the most out of" with "stop wasting" led to an almost 19% increase in CVR and 67%+ boost to CTR.

Here's how to test negative ads for yourself:

- Considering your vertical, target demographic, and the way your competitors talk about themselves.

- Create a set of ads with a negative sentiment and test them for 2 weeks against your existing ads - just make sure your ads are set to rotate evenly

- Tag them with a "positive" or "negative" label, and let them run live!

- Review the results at the end of the 2 weeks to see if you're better off going low

Source: Wordstream

Open Roles

  • Agency Operations Manager

    We’re looking for a cool, sharp, witty and talented talented person to join our team to help manage day to day operations of our agency internally.

  • Senior Account Manager: Paid Social

    This is your chance to lead on strategy and execution in paid media channels for some of the world’s leading brands.

  • SEO Manager

    Are you self-directed, eager to learn, and interested in digital marketing and tech/startups in general? Check out this role.

Required Reading:

How to Spy on Your SEO Competitors

Learning how to spy on your competitors’ SEO profiles is a great way to figure out how to give your rankings a boost. In this step-by-step guide, discover how to use your competitors’ backlink profile for your own gain.